Chapter 19 - The Plunge into Darkness
Derek didn’t hesitate.
He didn't scream. He didn't plead. He used the very skill that had defined his redemption: he moved without calculating the cost to himself.
Derek lunged sideways, driving his entire weight into the rusted support cable of the overhead industrial winch hanging above the catwalk. The corroded cable snapped with a sound like a gunshot, swinging a two-hundred-pound iron pulley straight into Ruiz’s chest.
*Crack!*
Ruiz fired blindly as he was thrown backward against the iron railing. The bullet ricocheted off the steel wall with a deafening whine. The heavy pulley struck Ruiz’s ribs with a sickening crunch, sending his gun tumbling off the edge of the catwalk into the churning black water below.
"Sarah, jump!" Derek screamed, tackling Ruiz to the wet concrete as the detective pulled a tactical combat knife from his belt.
"Derek, no!" Sarah cried out.
"Take Mia and jump into the outflow!" Derek bellowed, his hands locking around Ruiz’s wrist as the blade gleamed inches from his throat. "The tunnel current carries to the cove! I opened the safety grating this morning! Go! SAVE OUR DAUGHTER!"
Ruiz slammed Derek’s head against the concrete. Derek coughed blood, but his grip on Ruiz’s arm did not break. He was fighting not like a man trying to survive, but like an anchor determined to hold the monster in the abyss.
Sarah scooped Mia into her arms. She clutched the Pelican case against her chest with one hand, wrapping her other arm tightly around her child.
"Hold your breath, baby!" Sarah screamed into Mia's ear. "Hold Mommy tight!"
"Mommy!" Mia shrieked.
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Sarah leaped off the catwalk.
They plummeted through fifteen feet of empty air before hitting the icy, turbulent surface of the lake intake. The freezing water slammed into Sarah’s chest like a wall of concrete, knocking the breath from her lungs. The sheer darkness of Bellweather Lake swallowed them whole, the ferocious suction of the outflow tunnel pulling them down, down into the roaring subterranean depths.
